I'd also like to say that a "magic block" is something that requires nothing to do something, like EE2. AE has none of those thankfully.

You can define 'magic block' as you see fit. I define it differently. A search of the minecraft forums in context shows people using both definitions, so clearly neither of us is wrong.

I will not discuss your assertion that LP needs to get as good as AE, beyond saying I much prefer Logistics Pipes to AE and am very glad that the developers of LP seem to share my opinion.

I suspect that the two mods provide for different people: Logistics Pipes provides the means to build a logistics network to people who want to build it from the ground up, and who enjoy all that that entails. Applied Energistics provides the means to build a logistics network to people who are less interested in that side of things.

To illustrate ... I really enjoy building a logistics network which has the capacity to handle thousands of blocks being inserted into it each minute. Not everybody enjoys that, and fair enough.

I also agree that I would hate to see it go down the route of any magic anything. I'm not a magiccraft player, I like the machines and what-nots, so I hope that it keeps in line with what the title of it essentially is "[BUILDCRAFT] Logistics Pipes", nothing more. Just refinements.

Actually - when I was talking about 'magic blocks' I was talking about blocks which do something with no rational justification for them achieving that thing.

A good example of this is the Forestry farms (both the old ones and the new multi block structures). You hand the farms the necessary materials (eg saplings) and they plant the saplings, cause them to grow, and chop them down all with nothing actually DOING the planting, chopping etc. There's no lasers shooting out, no arms moving around, nothing to explain how the saplings got from the inventory into the ground, or how the wood/apples/whatever got from the trees into the inventory. It all happens as if by magic.

With Logistics Pipes there's none of that. If you want a chest to store certain items you have to tell the logistics network that that chest stores those items. If you want that chest to make those items available to the logistics network then you have to install the correct type of pipe or chassis pipe/module to do that.

While AE isn't on the same level as Forestry for 'magic blocks' I feel it lacks the involvement at the 'nuts and bolts' level that we get from Logistics Pipes.

I think that there is room for both mods. I like building robust logistics networks with LP, and if others chose a different mod, that's all good as far as I'm concerned.

I've been playing a bit more with the mod and I have some more thoughts.

I must stress, however, that these are only first impressions and I'll be perfectly fine if you tell me that I'm wrong

Having read the handbook one is a little bit lost when trying to figure out where to start. I don't think you need to worry about this too much - I'm sure that there will be plenty of mod spotlights done about RC which will TELL people where to start. I simply raise the point because it's quite possible I've skipped a step. Once I had made some steel I cheated in a ton of it and went from there.

My initial thinking was that I should start with infrastructure. The two things that suggests are (1) a grinder and (2) an extractor. A grinder because most of the transmissions I'm likely to deploy are going to need lubrication, and an extractor because increasing ones ore yield is always first on the books.

So I built a DC motor and a hooked it up to a steel shaft. I should note that the red and green boxes are an EXCELLENT device to help get things aligned correctly. I then built and hooked up a grinder. I didn't expect the grinder to run off a single DC motor, which it obviously didn't. But I had no idea how much power I was producing or how much power the grinder needed.

After a lot of looking through the handbook I found the recipe for the Angular Transducer. I made one and discovered that it not only told me how much power I was producing, but it told me how much power I needed for the grinder. Another very very cool mechanism.

And so to my thoughts. Unless you expand the handbook so that the output from each engine, and the requirements for each machine are spelled out, the Transducer is a necessity. It's as necessary as the screwdriver. it really shouldn't take me as long as it did to find it. You need to convey that via the handbook. Possibly an 'Essentials' section might suffice? You could put the Basic Terms and Relevant Physics pages into it along with some pointers ... eg Many transmissions will require lubrication. Refer to the Grinder and Power Transfer section for more info. And pointers to the tools that one should build first.

Also - if my assumption is correct and the grinder is a basic device which should be crafted early, then it seems to me the recipe is too expensive. Of course I may be wrong.

It took me a little while to figure out how to put power into the extractor (bevel gears for the win)

I hooked up a steam engine (which I of course blew up) to the extractor to get an idea of the power requirements but the thing is I still wasn't sure. The power, speed and torque indicators are great, but the question that I'm left with is this: Do I have to max out each indicator before the step will be carried out? Or will less be sufficient?

One error I found in the description for Alternative Gears. Gears can be crafted from materials other than speed.

I'm guessing there is more to that sentence

Anyway - Now that I've explained how I'm playing through, I won't need to repeat the process and I'm sure that my further comments won't be such a wall of text

I'm very impressed by some of the concepts I've seen reading through the handbook and look forward to exploring the mod in detail.

But I've got to say that I find the handbook unwieldy.

Let's just assume that I want to look up the blast furnace. The required 'actions' are

Open the handbook, click on machines, click the + button four times. That is at minimum ... it requires that you recognize the icon for the blast furnace. Otherwise you'll have to click on each icon to ascertain if it is, or is not, the blast furnace before going on to the next one.

I suggest, instead, an index. Open the handbook, click on the (text based) index. click on machines, click on blast furnace.

More significant, however, is the inability to quickly go back to the Table of Contents.

Open the handbook, click on machines by accident when you meant to click on power transfer. The quickest way to get back to the ToC is to close the book altogether and open it again. I suggest a button which will be visible on pages which will take you back to the Table of Contents.

That's all I have now ... I'm about to try putting more lava around the blast furnace because it's taking way too long to heat up

*edit*

One thought on the Blast Furnace. Given that it's possible to get more output than input ... ie put a stack of iron in, get more than a stack of steel out ... I suggest that you have two slots for output so that it isn't 'stuck' waiting for you to clear the full stack of output.

Also - and this is just a cosmetic thing ... it would be very cool if you showed the actual temperature of the blast furnace when hovering over the thermometer.

My players pretty much make me copy the TC research from their old player files into their new ones when we start a new world. Honestly, I don't blame them. Research is interesting the first time or three, but after that it becomes really tedious. Unfortunately, I don't really know how to fix it.

Hmmm - that makes sense. I wish I'd thought of that the last time I lost all my research to a server death.

Ultimately I'm not sure what Azanor can do about the tedious nature of research. He can't just give us recipes with no effort involved without changing the very nature of the mod.

That having been said, standing at a table clicking a button over and over? With the chance of the right item resulting in a failure, even though I know it's the right item? That makes me want to cheat. But cheating stuff in always makes me feel really uncomfortable except when it's a response to a failure of the game.

I think I might just skip Thaumcraft for a few months and see what happens.

Thanks to all who replied for letting me know it wasn't just me who's had enough of research.

I've been putting together my mods for my next world, having decided to play SSP for a while, and I went to add thaumcraft and realised that I just cannot bring myself to do research again.

What with servers crashing and resetting everything, minecraft updates, and all the rest I've lost count of the number of times I've had to start research. Granted it's easier when you know what to chuck in the slot, but unless I tweak the rules and give myself 100% chance of success (or worse, cheat in a completed thaumonomicon) it's still going to not be any fun.

Has anyone else gotten to the point that they just don't want to have to do research again?

Next. Are you implementing yet another energy system. I mean we have IC, UE, BC, and blutricity. Electrodynamics too. Oh, you're killing me. Or are you using one or multiple APIs. Cause that would be cool.

I'm thinking the same thing.

I've dropped blutricity entirely, and won't be letting it back into my worlds, but IC2, BC and UE are all in place and I'd hate to add another.

I started wading through the thread, but when I realised just how many pages of posts there are, I decided to sign up and ask my questions.

I've done a search for posts about the connector plates which spontaneously appear when you connect a rednet cable to something (eg a switch), but can't see any evidence that people have asked for a way to disguise them.

I had hoped that a microblock cover would do the trick, however when I tried it it just seemed to fill in the edges.

I'd like a way to disguise the plates as they are aesthetically jarring in some of the builds I envisage. Is there a way to achieve that goal, and I've just not found it yet?

The other thing is worldgen.

I've disabled worldgen of MFR lakes, because, to be honest, one thing I really don't want when I connect to a minecraft world is random pools of effulent in my landscape. Actually I haven't tested it yet, so I'm hoping that disabling the MFR lakes will prevent that stuff appearing. Can someone confirm that for me?

May I suggest that separate options for the worldgen of the liquids might be a worthwhile idea? So that one might disable one but not the other.